


Curiosity Killed the Cat

by DawnGyocry



Series: Curiosity Killed the Cat [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Captivity, Could potentially be rated T, M/M, Purring Trolls, Xeno, non-graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 21:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnGyocry/pseuds/DawnGyocry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You should probably count yourself lucky you weren't just culled the day your eyes started betraying your mutant blood to everyone. But because of your relationship with a few highblood friends, you'd been spared enough to be allowed a suicide mission instead.<br/>...</p><p>Aliens aren't going to kill themselves you know.<br/>At least, you'd like to be killing more aliens, but oh no, they had to be researched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be short. Ha. Haha.
> 
> Ha.

 

Fuck your life.

You roughly shove a branch of pine needles from your face and stumble into a rocky clearing. You've been wandering this forsaken alien forest for hours and getting absolutely nowhere, just as your superiors planned. Well fuck them, fuck them all if they think you'll give up that easily.

You shrug off your backpack and slump down against a large boulder and try to catch your breath. You need rest, food, water. They sent you on this scouting mission (scouting, yeah right, you're not stupid enough not to know they sent you on a suicide mission to get rid of you) three sunsets ago, and you've run out of supplies. You're tempted to eat the grass off the ground, you're so hungry. You honestly would if you had any idea of what might be poisonous or not on this planet. You close your eyes and lean your head back against the rock. At least you can rest here for a bit.

You should probably count yourself lucky you weren't just culled the day your eyes started betraying your mutant blood to everyone. But because of your relationship with a few highblood friends, you'd been spared enough to be allowed a suicide mission instead.  Of course when they shipped you off to  scout out this planet, they'd kindly refrained from giving you any information on it. Fuckers.

You grind the heels of your hands into your eyes. You know there is some sort of alien settlement on the other side of this forest with weird, spiky trees. You'd scoped it out from atop a tall hill (small plateau?) before starting your trek through the woods, but you think maybe you should've just stayed on the hill until night came. The sun on this planet isn't fatal like it is on Alternia, but it hurts your eyes and makes it hard to see. You decide to take a nap until the sun sets. Then you can get out of these woods and hopefully find some food.

* * *

You can't have slept for more than a hour or so before your stomach forces you awake, demanding food. At least the sun is set enough to not hurt your eyes as much. You roll your stiff shoulders back enough to crack and push yourself to your feet.  Swinging your backpack over your shoulders you once again start marching forward, ignoring your stomach's protesting.

It takes a couple hours for the trees to start thinning, and by then you've started munching on a branch of one of the prickly trees, too hungry to worry about poison. There's some sticky sap on it that tastes sour and the bark gets stuck between your teeth. You wish there were some animals you could catch, but so far you've only seen some birds and small, bushy tailed beasts too far up in the trees to reach. You tell yourself that you must be close to the settlement now. You'd bet your own bulge there has to be at least some garbage there you can eat.

When you finally reach the edge of the forest, you want to cry with relief. You can see the settlement just down past the slope of another hill. There are lights coming from the buildings, so there must be technology on this planet, which you hope is good. You lay down at the edge of the hill to watch. You'd be stupider than a wriggler to blindly march in.

The settlement isn't that large, only a dozen hives or so. You have no idea if that's normal or not for this planet, but from what you'd managed to overhear from your superiors, you were honestly expecting something bigger. You see a handful of what look like vehicles outside the hives. This world must be pretty developed at least, which is probably why the Condesce has her eyes on it. Your platoon was the most recent of many within the past few sweeps. At least that's what they'd told you right before they sent you marching.

Your eyes are beginning to droop again when you hear the door to one of the hives slam. You jerk back to alertness and frantically locate the source of the noise. When you find it, you just stare, not quite believing your eyes.

The two aliens that walk out look just like trolls. Or, almost. You squint to get a better look. They're weirdly colored. And where the hell are their horns? You can't tell if they have small horns like you and you're just too far away to see them. They can't just _not_ have horns. Maybe they're broken? You lean forward to get a better look.

And, oh shitfuck, you nearly tumble head first down the slope as some of the ground breaks under your hands. You stumble heavily back on your ass, but only after sending a mini avalanche of rocks down the cliff. 

The aliens notice.

Really, it would be more surprising if they didn't. Fucking rocks were loud.

It takes the aliens all of two seconds of dumbfounded staring before they start yelling. One of them starts running your way. Scrambling to your feet, you blindly take off back into the woods. There's cover there, the trees should make it easier to hide.

You barely make it to the edge of the trees when you hear the first shot. Startled, you nearly fall on your face, but manage to grab a tree branch before you hit the ground. Fast as you can, you rebalance yourself and sprint through the trees, barely noticing the way the sharp needles on the branches scratch your face.

Okay, don't panic, don't panic, they can't be too fast. You're fast for a troll, and if they look the same, they're probably only has fast as normal trolls. You can outrun them.

More shots blare through the air and you put all your effort into running, running, escaping. But you're too hungry, too tried, and you start slowing. You can't get enough air and your limbs are jelly from lack of nutrition. You stumble against a thick tree trunk, gasping. Maybe you can climb the tree. Your claws dig into the bark, but before you can begin to pull yourself up, you hear another shot, followed by an explosion of pain in your shoulder.

You hear someone scream, and as you stagger away from the tree, you realize it's you. You grind your teeth together to cut yourself off and shove your hand into your shoulder. Your traitorous mutant blood drips through your fingers to the ground as you stagger forward, your mind still screaming get _away, get away._

You manage to stumble a few steps forward before tripping over a root. You tumble down a small hill, your shoulder shrieking. You stop when your back collides against a boulder. Using your good arm, you try to push yourself back up. But you can't. You slump against the stone, head spinning.

You try not to cry because fuck, fuck, if this is really how you're going to die, you're going to do it with dignity.

You can hear someone crashing through the trees towards you and you lean you head against the boulder, close your eyes in defeat. You can't bring yourself to look up when you hear the footsteps suddenly slow and then stop in front of you. The alien says something, and you drag your head up to look, surprised you weren't killed on the spot.

The alien is all the wrong colors. Pale, pinkish skin, and bizarre, almost white hair, like a lusus or something. You can't see the alien's eyes - they're covered by big, black shades. The alien says something again. The language is weirdly flat, with too many vowels.

You close your eyes again as the dizziness in your head overwhelms you.  You hear the alien shuffle forward before you lose consciousness.

* * *

.

* * *

You've always considered yourself to be a pretty cool guy. But even someone as cool as you has limits. So when you were told you were being shipped from Texas to Washington you found it nothing short of a travesty, and not even in an ironic sense.

But aliens aren't going to kill themselves you know.

At least, you'd like to be killing more aliens, but oh no, they had to be _researched_.

But at least you got to be with your friends in this god forsaken ice-block of a state. When the aliens started popping up in small numbers a few years back, your Bro got in touch with his scientist friend, who recruited the two of you to help her and her daughter do research on the bastards. Turns out Bro's friend was actually the adoptive mother of your cousin, Rose. Who knew.

(You're actually pretty damn sure Bro knew and was keeping it from you to troll you like the fucker he is.)

And after a year of kicking it with the Lalondes, you managed to convince your friend Jade to help out and bring her crazy adventurer grandpa along. Jade was the one who convinced John to come, since she's his half-sister. Dadbert stayed back in his cute suburban house in the more urban side of Washington.

But even though it's great living with your best buds,  you seriously think you might go insane from the Washington weather. For the love of God, it's summer, it should not be this cold. And is it really necessary for it to rain every other goddamn day?

You adjust your shades and look up at the sky. It's sunny today, for once, and you're soaking it in as much as you can. You don't even care if you'll come out looking like a crab by the end of the day. Jade's out with you. You suspect she misses the sun just as much, what with growing up on a Hollywood-worthy tropical island.

"Hey, Dave, Jade!"

You turn to see John waving at the two of you from the research building's door, buck teeth splayed everywhere.  You nod in acknowledgment as Jade waves back.

"Mr. Harley wants us in the Lab to see something," John says, holding the door back for the two of you as you walk over to him. You try not to groan. You like the old bastard, but the man needs to learn when to shut up after he gets going. "He says it'll be quick, and then we can get something to eat."

Well, at least you'll get some food out of it, you're starving.

There better be apple juice.

* * *

You stretch back in your chair, groaning. Damn, old Grandpa Harley sure knows how to cook, you're beginning to wonder if your stomach will ever shrink back to a normal size after living here. But there wasn't any apple juice. Bluh.

"Hey, Dave, wanna take Bec for a walk with me?" Jade asks you, bounding up to stand next to your chair.

"Ugnnn, not really," you answer. Jade bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, leans over you, and goddammit why does she have to be so good at the puppy eyes.

"Please, Dave! Rose says she needs to brush Jaspers and John needs to finish up something in the lab."

You groan and try not to look at her pitiful green eyes. "Why can't you walk your damn bear yourself?"

"It's not as fun alone," she says, and you can practically hear her lips pout in her voice. Don't look, don't look, oh fuck, why did you just look at her now you have no choice.

"Nnnngh, fine," you groan, scraping your chair across the floor as you stand up. "But only a short walk. I'm not getting eaten by mosquitoes just for a flea bitten monster."

"Thanks, Dave," she beams and grabs Bec's leash of the top of the refrigerator. You grudgingly follow her to the door, making sure to drag your feet enough to express your displeasure.

You and Jade are barely out the door when  you hear it.

It sounds nothing short of a bulldozer crashing into a mountain. You whip your head to the source of the noise. The last of the boulders are settling at the bottom of the cliff, but that's not what catches your eye.

At the top of the slope, you see someone stagger back from the cliff edge and fall down. You tilt your head slightly, confused why anyone would be out here in the middle of nowhere, but your heart stops when you see a flash of gold in that black hair.

Jade notices at nearly the exact moment you do. You feel her stiffen next to you.

"Jade, go get the others," you say quietly, and when she starts to protest you snap loudly, "I'm serious, Jade! Go!"

She hesitates for a fraction of a second before dashing back inside, calling over her shoulder, "We'll be right behind you!"

You start running towards the cliff, and you can see the alien scrambling to its feet and take off towards the woods. You curse under your breath and try to run faster. When you reach the cliff, you scramble painfully up the rocks, ignoring how it scrapes the skin off your knees and palms. At least the slope is pretty small.

When you reach the top of the hill, you glance back to see that not far behind Jade has gotten everyone out to help give chase. Jade has her gun with her.

The alien is about halfway to the woods now, and you race to catch up before it can disappear into the trees. Just as the alien is about to disappear into the trees, you hear Jade shoot from behind you. The alien stumbles, you gain a few feet on it.

It disappears into the woods before you can catch up and you curse. It can't get away, it's not an option. Who knows what'll happen if it does. There could be a whole slew of them waiting away for that one to return for all you know.

You reach the trees too late, you've lost sight of it. You grit your teeth and push forward. You hear Jade fire a couple more shots and the crashing of underbrush as the others reach the woods. You slow and try to listen for footsteps ahead of you.

You hear Jade fire again, followed by a strangled scream. You take off in the direction of the sound.

When you reach a tree splattered with blood, your heart freezes in your throat.

That's human blood.

Bright, red human blood. Not even that muddy red that some of the aliens have. Human red.

Your eyes trace the blood trail and you try not to panic. You can't have been wrong. It _was_ an alien on that hill. You're sure of that. Your heart clenches again when you suddenly wonder if Jade mistakenly hit one of your own.

You shakily step along the trail of blood, see the crunched underbrush leading to a small drop off. You peak over the edge of the slope.

At the bottom of the slope, you see someone covered in blood, trying to push up from a boulder. You edge a bit closer, trying to get a better look. The person slumps back against the rock, head down. You can't see anything but the person's hair and blood. You ungracefully slide-skip down the slope, hesitantly walk up to the boulder.

Your heart nearly gives out in relief when you catch sight of two small horns in that hair. You were right, just an alien.

"Hey," you say to it, and take another small step towards it. If you stand over it, it should take it as a sign of dominance. That's what Rose always says anyway.

It drags its head up and focuses its creepy eyes on you. Now you can definitely see its alien grey skin. Its irises are a violent shade of red against its gold sclera. Its eyes pop out against the dark grey of its skin and its black clothes. The thing is all eyes and dark, dark everything else.

You realize this is the closest you've been to one of the aliens while it was still alive.

It stares at you for a moment, expression surprised at first, before something like defeat crosses its eyes, and goddammit why do these things have to look so human, you actually feel a pang of pity as it closes its eyes and slumps back against the boulder.

"Haha, oh fuck me of course you'll make me kill you myself." You sigh, shuffle forward, crouch down to face level with the alien. Other than the horns and coloring, it could be human. "Why'd you have to give me Jade's puppy eyes first?"

It takes you a moment to realize it isn't conscious anymore. Or so you think. You nudge it with your knee and get no response. Yeah, it's out.

You sigh and run a hand through your hair. You wish you had a weapon with you so you could just get it over with and bring it back to the lab for Dr. Lalonde to look at. Your eyes trail to its bloody shoulder. With the amount of blood that’s oozing out, it'll probably bleed to death, so maybe you don’t even need to worry about it.

You still can't shake the weird feeling that settles in your stomach at the sight of its red, red blood. Your group has catalogued 10 different blood colors in these aliens so far, so it shouldn't be so surprising, but these aliens are already ridiculously similar to humans as it is, and so far blood was one of the few things keeping their species separate.

Maybe  you just don’t want it to be human. You don't want to relate the number of aliens you've killed to human lives.

You wish Jade would hurry up and get here with her gun. You don't like staring at this thing. You rub the bridge of your nose and shift so you're sitting face to face with the unconscious alien. This one's pretty small compared to most of the ones you've brought in. Younger too, like it could be your age (haha brain, okay, let's not think about that).

You really ought to have killed it by now. Just go break its neck. It's not that hard.

But the longer you stare at it, the harder it is for you to do it. This kid - no, alien - looks so goddamn tired and small. Like it's never had a full night's sleep in its life. You remind yourself that it is not a kid. It's an alien, obviously a soldier like the other ones you've killed.

You have to remind yourself that you're not a kid anymore either.

You should really just kill it already.

You jump when you hear John and Jade burst out of the trees behind you.

"Wh- Dave! You found it?" John pants, jogging up to you.

"Uh, yeah."

"You scared us!" Jade exclaims when she reaches you. "We thought it got you! There was so much blood everywhere!"

You shrug and jerk your head towards the alien. "Must be a new blood type. Freaked the hell out of me too."

Jade crouches down next to you, looking at the blood coming from the alien's shoulder. Before you can stop her, she pokes the wound with her musket. The alien makes a small noise, shifts.

"Holy shit, Dave!" Jade yelps and falls back on her rump. "It's not _dead yet?!"_

"What do you mean it's not dead yet?"

You cringe at the sound of Bro's voice and turn to see him, Rose, the Doc, and Harley making their way down the slope. Oh, God, you should have just killed the stupid thing right away, you can't deal with Bro being mad at you. You try to think of an excuse but you're saved by Dr. Lalonde's thoughtful hum.

"You know, we've never had a live alien before to study," she says, putting a pondering finger to her lips.

"No," Bro says instantly.

"But think of what we could learn," Dr. Lalonde presses. "When will we get another chance to get one this easily?"

"Where will we even keep it?" John asks, curiously walking around the unconscious alien.

"Point," Bro says. You snort, it's obvious Bro just doesn't want to deal with it.

"I could easily keep it sedated until we can make some sort of confinement for it," Dr. Lalonde says easily, waving her hand.

"I would be interested in studying one alive too," Rose adds. "We've only studied dead ones before, which is all well and nice for biological studies, but I'd like to get a psychological read on them as well.

"Not to mention we might be able to get some intel out of it!" Harley chips in. "I think we'd have a lot to gain from this venture if we go for it!"

You see the corners of Bro's lips curl down slightly before going impassive again. He turns to stare at the alien's bag strapped over its shoulders. "Fine," he says, walking over to the alien. "I'll make the confinement, but I'm sure as hell not going to play babysitter for it." He leans down, unbuckles the backpack from around the alien's shoulders and waist. He wiggles it out from behind the alien and tosses it to you. You catch it clumsily.

The Doc cheers and spins in a little circle. You don't think you've ever been so grateful towards her in your life, because as much as you don't want to admit it to yourself, you're glad you didn't have to kill the stupid thing.

* * *

.

* * *

The first thing you're aware of is how fucking much your head hurts.

The second thing you're aware of is how fucking much you _shoulder_ hurts. Fuck.

The third thing you're aware of is holy fuck you're still alive.

You're not sure if that's a good thing or not.

You shift into a sitting position, biting down a wave of nausea, grimacing when your shoulder flares angrily at you. Augh, holy shitting nooks you're on some sort of padded platform that you can only link to something you'd really rather not think about right now. You slide yourself uneasily to the concrete floor.

You look apprehensively at your surroundings. You're in some sort of weird, creepily sterile looking block. In one corner there's a small toilet (speaking of which, you really need to go soon), but it looks like a temporary one that needs to be emptied by hand. Ick. On the padded platform there's a number of blankets. Other than that, the block is empty.

Three walls of the room are simple grey concrete. The third is made of glass, a door set in its corner. You slowly push yourself to your feet, grunt at the shoot of pain it sends through your shoulder.  You shuffle anxiously to the glass wall, knock on it. It sounds wrong, thicker. It must be reinforced. You look out. The small block you're in looks like it's inside some bigger block full of weird equipment and electronics you're not familiar with. You're stomach churns when you lay eyes on some really sharp tools that look way too much like torture devices to you. You decide you don't want to know what they're for. Actually you don’t want to think about it at all.

Also you really have to piss. Except you really don’t want to use the stupid toilet that doesn’t flush. It'd make the block smell bad. Ugh.

You sit back down and lean against the glass wall. Your shoulder throbs at any movement, but when you pull your shirt down to look at it, you see bandages wrapped tightly around the wound. Obviously the aliens must have cleaned it, though less obvious is the reason why. You still can't fathom why they didn't just kill you on the spot. The fact that they're healing you makes you anxious. All too many times you've had to watch some poor alien that your superiors captured go through some sort of nasty torture after they nursed it back to health. You need to be strong enough to survive the torture after all. Ahaha, oh fuck you don't even know anything if they do torture you.

Dammit, dammit you need to stop thinking about it. You'll just go crazy.

You give in and take a piss.

And then you wait.

* * *

.

* * *

You've spent the past few days periodically checking on the alien in the lab. Technically the others are supposed to take turns with you, but Bro's still pretty sour about the whole thing and you're pretty sure he blames you for not killing it right away and making you do most of the work is his way of getting back at you. Of course Dr. Lalonde has been checking in on it a lot too. She was the one to take care of the gunshot wound and keep it fed with protein shots twice a day. She says it should be waking up any day now, though apparently it was suffering from exhaustion before Jade even shot it, so it might take longer. You personally hope it stays asleep for as long as possible. But because the universe seems to hate you lately, when you go to check on it after three days of it being asleep, you see it sitting against the glass wall of the confinement room, looking simultaneously pissed, bored, and tired. And maybe a little bit scared.

You stand at the bottom of the lab staircase for a moment. You really should just go back upstairs and tell the Doc it's finally woken up. Instead you pull out your phone and pester her.

\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]--

TG: yo our pet aliens awake  
TG: just so you know  
  
TG: o wow thanks davey!  
TG: gimme a sec and ill be right down  
  
TG: k  
TG: youd better not be drunk we dont need you puking all over our new alien friend  
  
TG: o shush u know i dont drink before woerkin in the lab  
TG: workin*  
  
TG: that inspires a lot of faith in you right there

\--turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]--

You roll your eyes and put your phone back into your jeans pocket. When the Doc says she'll be right down, that can honestly mean anywhere from twenty seconds to twenty minutes. Might as well explore the mysteries of grey invaders while you wait.

Bro said the glass for the confinement room is soundproof, so you don’t bother with being quiet as you approach. The whole setup was hastily thrown together; they sectioned off a part of the lab and just put in a spare cot with some blankets and bought a little port-a-potty meant for training little kids to go in grown up toilets.

When you reach the glass wall, you stare down at the alien. You've seen plenty of aliens in your time, but never one that wasn't immediately trying to kill your or dead. It bothers you to see this one so small, vulnerable, all curled up on itself like a scared cat. You knock on the glass above its head.

The reaction is instant.

The alien whips around and scrambles back only to grimace as it puts weight on its injured shoulder. You wince in sympathy behind your shades. Ugh, that had to hurt. The alien curls back in on itself a bit, but raises its eyes to meet yours, chin up. (Don't look down on me.) Its eyes look wider than a human's could, its pupils shrinking, scared but trying damn hard not to show it. You consider it for a moment before sitting down cross-legged. Lower yourself to its level so you don’t come off as so intimidating. The last thing you need is for this thing to go ballistic in there.

The alien visibly relaxes. It narrows its eyes, says something. You raise a hand to your ears to show you can't hear. The alien pauses, confused, before realization crosses its face. Black lips pull back, revealing its sharp teeth. As far as aliens go, this one is fairly unthreatening. It's teeth are sharp, but small, and you don't think you've ever seen one with horns as tiny as these - they almost get lost in its tangle of black hair. Its lips and cheeks quiver, growling. You raise an eyebrow, unimpressed.

The alien is talking again, but won't move from its spot on the floor. You wonder why it wasn’t sitting on the cot at least. You lean forward so your forehead is barely an inch from the glass.

"You know I can't hear a word you're saying, right?" you say. It pauses, an annoyed expression pulling at its features. It starts muttering to itself, running its good hand through its wild hair. It drops it hand and stares at you again. Its eyebrows draw together, says something, points a golden claw at you. You tilt your head to the side. You don't understand. What about you? It growls again and mimes glasses around its own eyes and points back at you. Ah, it wants you to take off your shades. You shake your head. "Sorry, no can do, bro. These babies ain't coming off anytime soon."

It narrows its own red, red eyes. It jerks forward like it's going to come closer, but changes its mind and curls in on itself a bit more, eyes darting behind you. Before you can even turn to see what it's looking at, you hear the Doc's heels coming down the lab stairs.

"Took you long enough," you say, looking over your shoulder at her.

"Oh, hush you, it was only a few minutes," Dr. Lalonde replies, striding over to stand next to you. You look back inside the confinement room and see the alien staring warily up at the Doc. It keeps its chin tucked over its neck, guarded. The Doc hums thoughtfully and puts a hand on her hip. "Has it done much since you got down here?"

You shrug. "It's pretty chatty I guess."

"Doesn’t seem too chatty now." She's right. The alien has recoiled into an all-defensive pose, nervously watching the Doc's every movement. You think it's edged back a few inches since you last looked at it, too.

"Maybe try sitting down like me," you suggest. "It calmed down when I did that."

The Doc rocks her head from side to side, considering, before saying, "No, I think we should probably keep showing dominance for now. It's better to have it scared of us than to have it think it can overpower us." She looks down at where you're sitting. "You should probably stand up, too."

Why not? She knows better than you about these things. You push yourself up, trying not to feel like a douche for the way the alien cringes. Its eyes flick over to you for a brief moment before snapping back to the Doc. "I don't think it likes you very much," you snort.

She pouts, but doesn’t say anything. She turns and walks over to her equipment at the side of the room. She fiddles with a few settings on her computer. "Hmmm, Dirk said he wired in an audio speaker into the room, so we should be able to talk to it from out here." Well, huh. You look around the confinement walls briefly before spotting a speaker in the corner of the room.  But you wonder what the point even is if you won't even be able to even understand the thing. "Ah, here we go!"

The second the Doc turned on the speaker, you're pretty sure the alien had a miniature heart attack at the sound of the crackling speakers. It jumps ungracefully to its feet, looking around in alarm before spotting the speaker, its cheeks darkening with embarrassment. It shifts its weight stiffly from foot to foot, looking out at the two of you expectantly.

"Hello," the Doc says into the small microphone by the computer. The alien twitches at the sound of her voice. "We're going to come in to give you a shot that should serve as food for a little while. Don't do anything sudden."

"Uh, Doc, what's the point in telling it that when it's got no clue what you're saying?"

"To get it used to our voices," she answers simply, digging her hand around her lab coat pocket. After a moment of fumbling, she pulls out a cardkey. "It'll have to learn our language eventually, so it's best to talk to it normally so it can pick up on it naturally." She picks up some bandages off the counter and two injection shots. She walks over to you, hands you one. "That's a sedative in case it gets too aggressive. Just push it in anywhere and it should  be out in a few seconds. I'm going to give it another protein shot for now; we'll have to find out what it can eat later. And I need to switch out its bandages."

You nod, and close your fingers around the shot. You follow Dr. Lalonde to the door of the confinement room, your stomach clenching as she slides the cardkey through the scanner. You're not nervous. You just don't like being in the same room with an alien without any real weapon, that's all. As the door swings open, you can smell something sour. The alien must have used the toilet. Nice. You somehow have no doubt that you'll be the one emptying it. The alien itself looks torn between bolting and standing its ground. You notice its knees trembling.

You and the Doc glide into the room and you shut the door quickly behind you. The Doc strides right up to the alien, not even showing the slightest bit of hesitation. You can't help but be impressed as you move to stand on the other side of the alien. The alien's eyes swivel between the two of you, a strange clicking noise reverberating from its throat. In the end it seems to decide the Doc is more of a threat and keeps its large eyes on her. You can't help but feel a little insulted.

"Alright, hun," the Doc says softly, non-threateningly. It's eyes twitch. You notice the Doc, while keeping her voice soothing, is using her slight height advantage over it, preserving dominance. "We're going to need you to take off your shirt so we can switch your bandages." She gestures to her own shirt and then to its injured shoulder.

It furrows its eyebrows, clicks clattering nervously in its throat. It opens its mouth, says something. It's got to be the most guttural language you've ever heard. Mostly a jumble of growling, clicks, chirps. Hardly any vowels to be heard. All those times while fighting aliens, you'd assumed they'd just been growling at you, but now you wonder if they were actually talking to you. The alien's voice is raspy, like it spends most of its time yelling.

By the look on its face, it obviously has no clue what the Doc wants. You begin to lift your own shirt up, before pointing to its own shirt. "Gotta get the shirt off, bro."

Understanding crosses its eyes and it pulls its shirt up, grimacing as it tries to get it over its injured shoulder. Your eyebrows pull up when you notice its lack of a belly button and nipples. You knew they didn't have them, the Doc had told you before that they weren't mammals, but knowing something and seeing it are two different things. Your eyes linger on the weird scar tissue on its sides. That must be from the extra limbs the Doc had mentioned they must have at an earlier stage in life. Like fucking creepyass bugs or something. It hands the shirt to you.

You're kind of glad this one looks male, or this'd be more awkward. But you have no idea if it even is 'male.' Apparently all the aliens were packing the same androgynous junk, and anything else was just dimorphic differences that had nothing to do with reproduction. You really don't care to know much more than that, though Bro had told you horror stories of something along the lines of tentacle dicks. Nnng.

Dr. Lalonde hums tunelessly as she unwinds the bandages. The alien looks up at you, frustration in its eyes. It's clear it hates being in this situation, and you can't blame it. You'd hate it too. You're really not looking forward to babysitting this thing. You have no idea how long the Doc and Rose even plan on keeping it. It chatters something at you, sounds like a question. You just shrug and shake your head, moving out of the way when the Doc circles around to dab clean the wound and wrap the clean bandage around it.

The alien's muscles tense into hard knots when the Doc pulls the protein shot out. It makes some sort or startled chirping noise, sort of like a cricket, and takes the smallest step away from her, towards you, before grinding its sharp teeth together and lifting its chin. You put a steady hand on its good shoulder as the Doc leans in with the shot. Don't want it to squirm away from this.

The shot itself doesn’t take more than a second, but the alien looks like it's going to be sick to its stomach when the Doc pulls it back out.

"That stuff doesn’t hurt it, does it?" You ask, handing its shirt back to it.

"Not much more than a little prick," the Doc answers, gathering up the dirty bandages. "I'm sure it's just scared since it has no idea what I just injected into it." You frown a bit at that. Yikes, you'd hate to be in its boat right now. "Anyway, we should probably leave it alone for now; we don't want to over stimulate it. Give it a chance to get used to its environment, y'know?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

You empty the toilet before the two of you head back upstairs, and you can't shake the guilty feeling you have as it follows you with untrusting eyes.

* * *

.

* * *

Time crawls in the small block.

You almost wish the aliens would come back. Almost.

Your head pounds, and you're not sure what the hell they injected in you, not sure you want to know. All you know is you're bored, bored. Scared. You wonder how many aliens there are. So far, you think you've seen three. Two you saw from atop the cliff, and the female lusus haired one. She has strange, pink eyes, not exactly on spectrum, but close enough to sea-dweller coloring to make you nervous. She's got to be pretty high ranking. And the sclera of her eyes are a disconcerting white, like a ghost. The only other alien you've seen up close, the other lusus haired one, refuses to take off his shades. You wish he would, so you can gauge his rank.

You hate that they've seen your eyes, your blood. They know how low you are. What a freak you are. You doubt they even see you as a threat.

 You have a hard time telling how much time is passing and it bothers you. You wish they would turn down the lights some. You pull all the blankets from the padded platform and make yourself a pile on the floor. You wish you had more to work with, it's going to be hard to get to sleep on this fluff pile, but it's all you've got. You sleep a lot. You're not sure if it's because its day time or because of your shoulder. Maybe both. Regardless, sleeping at least passes the time.

You sleep horribly, your usual nightmares worse than ever on the uncomfortable pile, and eventually give up and resort to pacing like some caged manebeast. You feel like one.  Fuck, what you would kill for a book right now. You have some digital books saved to your handheld, but it was in your backpack. You're not sure where it is now, but you suspect the aliens have it.

Shades comes down again after a while and shuts off the lights to your block. Your eyes water in relief. You take it to mean it's nighttime now, though you have no way of knowing for sure. You don't even know how long you were unconscious.

Shades turns to head back up the stairs, but, hell, you'll go crazy left alone here again. You knock on the glass wall. Shades pauses, one foot already up the first step. He drops his head into his hand, ruffles his hair, before turning around to face you.

"Hey, bulge cramp," you say, not even knowing what you want to say to him. You're just too desperate for something to _do_. Your head hurts from the stifling silence. You're voice seems loud in the silent room. "Are you fuckers actually going to do anything with me? Or is this your idea of torture? Your sick pleasure? To watch the enemy go crazy from boredom?" It actually might work too. You'd heard stories of sea-dwellers keeping lowbloods in air tanks underwater to watch them go crazy. Silence can do that to a person.

Shades's eyebrow quirks above his glasses, his mouth quirking in a bemused smile. He takes a few steps closer to your confinement room. He says something and gestures to his ear. You roll your eyes.

"I know you can't hear me, fuckstain." To be honest, you don’t even know what you're trying to get out of him. You knew nothing you tried to say would get across, even if he did turn the microphone back on. But you can't seem to stop yourself. "Just give me something to do."

Shades seems to consider something, before shaking his head and turning back towards the stairs. You rap your claws against the glass. Fuck, fuck, don't leave again. But the alien doesn't pause as he heads back up the stairs.

You growl as loud as you can and slam a fist against the glass, ignoring the spike of pain it sends through your shoulder.

* * *

You're just about to lay down on your blanket pile again when the lights flick on. You gasp, growl and squeeze your eyes shut. Mother of fuck why do these aliens keep it so _bright_. The lighting was pretty much perfect until they turned the lights back on. You glare out the glass wall. The female lusus haired one is back, this time accompanied by another, smaller lusus haired female. Ah, fuck it you're going to have a hard time keeping this aliens apart. And what the hell, the two of them even look eerily similar.

The speaker crackles on again, jarring your senses, but it's a relief. Any noise is welcome in this block. The doctor alien says something into the microphone. You have no clue what being said to you, but you try to at least read the tone in her voice. For the most part…soothing maybe? It's hard to tell, the language is so flat. Either way, it's far more gentle than you're comfortable with. At least when Shades was talking, he didn't sound like he was trying to shoosh you.

After a moment, the shorter one walks up to the door, lets herself in the block, the doctor right behind her. You can help but stiffen when you see this new alien has purple eyes. Are they all highbloods? It would make sense if they were in charge of keeping the prisoners. Purple-eyes walks right up to you, practically radiating her sense of authority. At least this one is a little shorter than you. A little.

The two spend the next hour or so poking and prodding you and generally driving you crazy. But they don't actually hurt you, just do unpleasant things like shine bright lights in your eyes, jotting stuff down. You guess they're measure your reflexes, general physique. You can't help but growl a few times, though they don't even hit you to put you back in your place. It makes you nervous.

When is the pain coming? It has to be coming. Why else would they keep you here? They have to want to know something. The wait is going to drive you crazy.

* * *

Later in the day, two new aliens come down the steps. These two are colored differently than the other ones. Their hair is properly black, their skin darker, though still not grey. They both have some pretty messed up teeth, poking over their lips. A lot of trolls have teeth that do that too, but at least troll teeth are threatening. The aliens' teeth are so blunt you wonder how they even eat anything. You still can't get over the fact that they don't even have horns. Or even decent claws! How the hell do these things survive?

The two of them have brought an assortment of food with them, and the moment they open the door to your block, saliva wells up in your mouth, your stomach growls eagerly. They sit down near you and put the food out in a line in front of you. You stare at them questioningly, and after smiles and nods from them both, you dig in. The food tastes weird, foreign. You hope it doesn't make you sick. But to hell with it, you're too hungry to really care.

Up close you can see the male one has dark blue eyes - another highblood. The girl's eyes are lime green (after a moment of surprise you decide it shouldn't really be all that surprising that limebloods weren't extinct on every planet). It puts you a bit more at ease. She's towards the bottom of the spectrum, safer. The male one is really touchy feely, gets all up in your personal bubble. You growl at him a lot.

Like hell you're going to let the brown fucker pale flirt with you. You've still got some pride in this mess of  a place.

* * *

.

* * *

Bro has decided to put you on alien litter box duties. You swear to fuck you're going to take a knife to his smuppets one of these days.

When you go down to check on it late afternoon, it's all curled up on the lumpy pile of blankets on the floor. Why the hell isn't it on the cot at least? Urg, it's like the thing built a nest. Creepy. You're not sure if it's asleep because of its injury, or because it's nocturnal or some shit. But judging by its enormous eyes, you're guessing the latter. Either way, you're glad it's asleep, you don't have to deal with its pitiful stares.

When you walk into the room to empty the toilet (ew), sedative in hand, you can hear a soft chirping from the alien as it breathes, sort of like a weird blend between a purr and a snore. Oh, god, it's almost _cute_. Or, it might be if its razor teeth weren't poking over the edge of its lips. As you walk by it, it shifts, makes a weird wimpery sound, grimaces. You feel another stab of pity for the stupid thing. Goddamn why didn't you just kill it from the start. In all honestly it probably would have liked that better, too.

It doesn't move again as you empty the toilet, but after you put it back and turn around to leave the room, you catch its bright eyes following you around the room. When you make eye contact, its eyebrows lower and growls something. You stare, not really sure what to say to it. Just ignore it? It rumbles something else, closes its eyes again and rolls over so it's not facing you anymore. It grumbles out another short sentence, no energy in its voice.

You leave before you do anything rash like try to comfort it.

* * *

For the most part, the week that follows is pretty uneventful. You really don't have much to do with the alien other than cleaning up after it (you're still pissed off  about that). Mostly the Doc and Rose have been the ones messing with it. Turns out you were right about the nocturnal thing. After some reaction tests to the way its eyes dilate, both Rose and the Doc have been insistent at keeping the lab at half lighting. They also found out pretty quick that the thing was omnivorous, much to your displeasure. Makes cleanup duty all that much more fucking exciting.

Rose says that so far, the alien is showing almost as much, if not as much sentience and intelligence as a human. You and the others had guessed that they had to be pretty intelligent based off their clothes, weapons, writing and technology, so it shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it still is. Having one trapped and passive jarred your previous impression of them. All you'd really seen of them beforehand was wild and snarling. You can't help but feel guilty for keeping a sentient being in a cage like that. You wouldn't treat a human war prisoner that way.

Jade has been gathering toys for it, under Rose's request. Have to keep its brain stimulated, she says. Jade found some old puzzles for it to do, and apparently it took to them pretty well. Unfortunately it has a weird habit of taking anything they put in the room and adding it to its nest. Rose is speculating hoarding or something. You don't really care all that much about the reasoning behind it, it's just creepy. John visits it with Jade a lot, but he always comes back disappointed. Apparently it growls at him more than anyone else. Heh.

Harley informs you all at supper one evening that he and Bro have been hacking into the handheld computer that was in the alien's bag. Says that they’ve managed to create a program that will translate the alien language to English and vice versa.

"We're still working out a few bugs, but it works for the most part," Bro adds after Harley's explanation.

"So who gets to try talking to it first?" John asks, obvious eagerness in his voice.

"Not you," Jade says to him from across the table. He frowns.

"Why not?"

"Because it hates you, dummy."

"Yeah, but it hates everyone!"

"But it especially hates you," Rose says, smirking.

"So then who?" John asks.

"I think Dave," Dr. Lalonde says brightly.

"Tell me you're joking," you say, looking her dead in the eye. To your horror, she doesn't look like she's joking.

"I'm not jokin'!" Dammit. "I really think you'd be best."

"Why?" You try very hard to keep the edge of a whine out of your voice. You fail.

"Well, I've been watchin' ya when you're down with it, and for some reason it's best behaved around you!"

"I wonder why that is," Rose hums to herself. "But I agree, it would be best for Dave to do it. I get the feeling it's more relaxed around him than anyone else. It might not respond if Mom or I try it."

"Don't I even get a choice in this?" you groan.

"Nope," Rose and the Doc say simultaneously.

God fucking dammit.

* * *

You spend approximately ten minutes standing awkwardly at the bottom  of the lab steps, trying to just get your ass together and go do this thing. You don't even know what's keeping you from it. It's not like the thing is going to eat your face. Well, maybe, but that's what you've got a sedative for.

Once the alien notices you standing there, you really have no choice but to man up and get this over with.

It watches you intently from where it's sitting against the concrete wall. You wish you could turn the lights up, it's hard to see with your shades on, but you know if you do Rose will chew your ass out later. The alien tilts its head and then disregards you, focusing its attention back on the puzzle its working on. Well, then. You feel a bit miffed at that.

When you let yourself in the confinement  area and stop in front of the alien, it looks back up at you, surprised. Probably thought you were just playing bathroom boy again. Meh. It chatters something, apprehension obvious in its voice. You lower yourself to sit next to it, your back against the wall. Its muscles grow less sense, but the surprise in its voice is evident when it speaks to you again. You reach in your pocket and pull out your phone, its handheld, and a sheet of paper. Harley said the paper should have an explanation written on it so the alien understands what's going on.

The surprise on its face grows when you hand it the paper, eyes trailing over the alien letters. Reading about how the translator works blah blah, how the rest of the handheld has been disabled blah blah blah, how the alien should be unable to use it to contact outside help yadda, yadda. When it looks back up at you, guarded eagerness in its eyes, you pass it its handheld and pull Pesterchum up on your phone.

\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]--

TG: so whats up alien bro does this thing work or what

CG: I HOPE FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY BLOOD-PUSHER THAT IT IS JUST THIS SHITTY AS FUCK TRANSLATOR THAT HAS YOUR ABILITY TO FORM DECENT LANGUAGE HINDERED.  
CG: BECAUSE FUCK ME DRY IF I HAD TO PUT UP WITH LISTENING TO YOUR KIND'S RIDICULOUS MOANY LANGUAGE ONLY TO FIND OUT YOU CAN'T EVEN WRITE INTELLIGENTLY.

Huh, whoa. You look over at the alien. It's digging its eyes into yours, incredulity burning in its irises. You're not really sure what you expecting. But this sure as hell wasn't it. Maybe something like 'we come in peace' or 'take me to the mothership.' And you're not entirely sure how to take that chumhandle. Please don’t let this thing actually be a scientist or something.

TG: whoa calm your tits bro  
TG: actually important question  
TG: are you a dude or a chick

CG: WHAT THE HELL SORT OF QUESTION IS THAT. DO I HONESTLY LOOK LIKE A FEATHERED CLUCKBEAST TO YOU?

TG: yea okay let me rephrase  
TG: are you a boy or a girl or what

CG: ARE YOU INTENTIONALLY TRYING TO COME OFF AS THE SINGLE STUPIDEST SPECIES IN THIS SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE? BECAUSE REST ASSURED, IT'S WORKING.  
CG: I WOULD THINK, THAT CONSIDERING HOW UNREASONABLY SIMILAR OUR SPECIES ARE, YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF.

TG: okay okay youre a boy  
TG: don’t blame me if you and your ladies all have the same junk  
TG: throws a guy off

CG: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH BEING A BOY OR GIRL?

TG: um kind of everything

The alien whips its - his -head up to stare at you, something akin to horror in his eyes. You can't say that you're too comfortable with his weird alien idea of sex either. Blugh.

CG: OKAY LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT YOUR FUCKED UP PERVERSE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS.  
CG: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

TG: nothing id rather not even be here talking to you right now  
TG: no offense

CG: I MEANT YOUR KIND AS A WHOLE, BULDGEFUCK.

TG: research  
TG: and intel i guess

CG: I THOUGHT SO.  
CG: SO I SUPPOSE I CAN SAFELY ASSUME THAT I'M NEVER GETTING OFF THIS DAMN PLANET OF YOURS, AM I?

TG: i doubt it

The alien slumps beside you, closes his eyes, mutters something to himself. He makes a little chirp in his throat and rubs his eyes. It's hard to look at him.

TG: so do you have a name  
TG: or is that just a human thing

CG: A WHAT THING? THAT WORD ISN'T COMING ACROSS.

TG: human  
TG: its what my species is called

You look over the translator settings and find a phonetic translation option. You click it and try again.

TG: human  
TG: can you read it that time or are we just gunna call each other aliens

CG: I GOT IT THAT TIME.  
CG: MY KIND ARE CALLED TROLLS.  
CG: AND YES I DO HAVE A NAME BY THE WAY. WHAT KIND OF CIVILIZATION CAN BE FORMED IN A WAY THAT MAKES ANY OUNCE OF FUCKING SENSE WITHOUT THE CONCEPT OF NAMING ANYTHING?

TG: trolls huh  
TG: like the kind under bridges eating poor unsuspecting goats

CG: WHAT

TG: so then whats your name oh sir troll or do i have to pay a toll to first

CG: ◘◘◘◘◘◘

TG: didnt quite catch that

CG: FINE I'LL JUST SAY IT OUT LOUD.

He looks up at you, opens his mouth. The sound he makes sounds a lot like a growl, a click, a cut off hiss. It doesn't sound anything like a name. More like a strangled cat.

TG: yea so theres no way ill ever be able to say that without breaking my throat  
TG: try switching your translator to phonetic for a sec  
TG: it might give me something easier to say

CG: ALRIGHT HOLD ON.  
CG: KARKAT.

"Karkat?" you say out loud. He wrinkles his nose in distaste.

TG: wow thats actually adorable  
TG: like a little kitty in a little bug car  
TG: i might have to kick myself in the balls every time i say it just to feel manly again

CG: FUCK YOU MY NAME HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MEOWBEASTS. AND YOUR INCOMPETENT LINGUAL MUSCLE COMPLETELY BUTCHERS THE WAY MY NAME SOUNDS.

TG: yea well too bad thats how im gunna say it from now on.  
TG: by the way my name is dave

CG: HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SAY THAT?

"Dave."

 Karkat furrows his eyebrows, looks at you, confused. You say it again for him. He opens his mouth and tries.

The result is something like, "Devvh." There's some weird clicks in the undertone of the vowel, but you figure that's probably the best he can do.

TG: close enough  
TG: so anyway im supposed to ask if you need anything or some shit  
TG: you know so you don’t die on us or something

CG: GIVE ME SOMETHING TO FUCKING DO. AND I MEAN MORE THAN JUST THESE PUZZLES MEANT FOR WRIGGLERS WITH DAMAGED THINK PANS.  
CG: I MAY LITTERALLY DIE OF BOREDOM OTHERWISE.

TG: yea sure ill talk to rose or the doc or something  
TG: anything else?  
TG: i mean ill probably wind up being translator boy so youll have a chance to shares your woes with me again  
TG: but anything else before i head up for the day

CG: YES.  
CG: THAT ONE HUMAN. WITH THE BLUE EYES AND AWFUL TEETH.

TG: you mean john

CG: SURE, WHATEVER.  
CG: TELL HIM TO STOP FLIRTING WITH ME. IT'S PATHETIC.

You're pretty sure you laugh hard enough for everyone upstairs to hear.

* * *

.

* * *

True to his word, Dave must have told the other humans to get you something to do. You were honestly shocked when the two with bad teeth (John and Jade, you learned) brought down various things to keep you occupied. The best was when you convinced them to unlock the books on your handheld. You just can't figure out why they're treating you so softly. They even gave you stuff to add to  your pile so you can sleep better. If they want intel, they're doing a poor job breaking you.

Except…

You hate yourself for even contemplating the idea that this may even be bothering you. But. You're lonely. You know you're stuck here until you die. No one is going to come get you (they sent you away so you _would_ die). You literally have no purpose left other than to betray your own species.

You wonder what is even the fucking point anymore.

* * *

.

* * *

"I'm starting to believe that Karkat is getting depressed," Rose informs you.

"Okay, and?" You shift uncomfortably on your bed. It's been a few weeks since your first chat with the mouthy alien. And ever since, anytime they need to communicate with him at all, the Doc sends  you to do it. She says you're the best at it or some shit. No idea where she even gets the idea. All you know is you hate talking to him. It makes your stomach sour to see him locked up in that cage. You feel like a goddamn villain from a bad sci-fi.

"It's not very effective to do a psych study on someone who's not behaving as they normally would."

"How they hell is he supposed to act normally in that room in the first place?" you ask before you can stop yourself. Rose flinches, closes her eyes.

"I know if feels wrong," she says, looks down at the ground. "I feel bad about it, too… But we're on the brink of war. We need to know what we're up against."

You growl and drag a hand through your hair. "I know, I know, I just. Sorry."

Rose looks like she wants to say something else, but in the end just puts a hand on your shoulder and says, "Can you go down to talk to him again? See if there's anything we can do to at least make it a bit easier for him."

"Yeah," you sigh. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

 

When you get down to the lab, you find Karkat half buried in his pile. His head is poking out the side, blankets caught on one of his bright horns. And oh, God, it's _cute_. Lord help you.

"What, are you trying to prove you're actually a cat?" you say, squatting down next to the sleeping troll. His hair's getting pretty greasy again. You know Jade and John have been in charge of giving him baths, but they probably don't do it as frequently as what's comfortable. You poke the base of his horn. "Hey Karkat, Karkitty. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty-Cat."

He shifts, drowsy little clicks and chirps muffled against one of the blankets. You tug on his horn, just hard enough to pull his head from the blankets. He makes a startled clatter and jerks up, eyes snapping open, dilated pupils shrinking immediately.

"Devvh, Devvh? Wha?" he says clumsily, looking up at you. You smirk. Jade has been attempting to teach him English, with more or less mediocre results. But hey, he's trying.

"Rose says we need to chat," you tell him.

He rubs the back of his wrist against his eye and moves to pull himself from his pile. Whether it's because he's still half asleep or what, he miscalculates the distance between the two of you. The tip of one of his horns taps against your shades, knocking them off your face. You quickly reach for them, but Karkat snatches your wrists before you get to them.

You look up, startled. His eyes are wide as his stares into yours, breathing halted almost completely. He's chattering something nonsensical, his voice uneven even for the roughness already in the language. He reaches a hand up to your eye, you flinch, surprised. He leans in, his eyes darting between each of your irises, then down to your wrist. He says something else, and holds a claw right above one of the bluish veins showing against your skin. He looks up at you, something like a question in his expression.

"Um, you okay, bro?" you ask, smiling nervously. Karkat lowers his claw to your vein, presses lightly, not enough to break the skin, clicks rattling pointedly in his throat. You tilt your head, not entirely sure what he wants, but you nod anyway. He pokes the tip of his claw through your skin, just enough to draw out a droplet of blood.

He goes completely ridged at the sight of the red fluid, stops breathing. His eyes dart back up to yours before hastily standing to his feet, recoiling from you. He's talking again and it's more erratic than before, the undertones of his voice rapidly switching from a panicked chirping to growling and back.

"Uh, Karkat?" You push yourself to your feet, take a hesitant step towards him. He makes a noise you haven't heard from him before, a loud buzz like a cicada. His face looks torn between flight and fight. You decide not to wait until he decides which is better and quickly leave the room and run up the lab steps.

* * *

 

"Dave."

You contemplate whether or not burrowing in your blankets will be enough to make you invisible.

"Dave," Rose says again, this time impatience putting an edge on her voice.

"Unng, what?" you groan, sitting up and swinging your legs over the side of your bed to face her. "Look, I'm sorry I broke your alien, okay?"

It's been a day since your fiasco with Karkat. When you told the Doc what happened, surprise still all over your face, she'd gone down straight away to calm him down. You haven't heard  anything since.

"He's calmed down, Dave," Rose assures you. "He's been asking for you all day."

"…Why?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but he's being quite adamant about seeing you."

You sigh. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"You know me too well."

* * *

So, here's the thing: when you went to the Doc to get the cardkey to the confinement room, she told you that Karkat had broken his translator during his little panic attack. You're not entirely sure if it was an accident or not. Regardless, you're out of a proper speaking method until Bro can finish repairing it. Fantastic.

"What's the point of seeing him if I can't even talk to him?" you'd asked, not even trying to conceal your frustration.

"He knows a fair amount of English now," she replied. "Enough to get you by until the translator's fixed."

So here you are, woefully translator-less, at the base of the lab steps watching the grey alien pacing anxiously in his small room. You make sure to knock on the glass before opening the door. The last thing you need right now is for him to freak out again.

He jumps a little bit when you walk in, stopping mid-step. He's making that cricket chirping noise again, but from the way it sounds strained and muffled, you can tell he's trying to make it stop. Huh, so is it like shivering then? An involuntary reaction?

"So, I hear you've been wanting to bask in my presence again, not that I blame you. If I were anyone else, I'd want to be around me as much as me, too."

Karkat rolls his eyes and walks carefully up to you, stopping only an arm's length away. "No, Devvh, you no."

"Yup, totally got the gist of that."

He growls, sharp teeth grinding. "No, no, you." He points to your eyes, safely hidden behind your shades, "Eyes."

"What about my eyes?" Haha, oh God, the Doc was severely overestimating Karkat's English skills. This was going to be a full on adventure just to get through one conversation.

He's struggling to find words. That much is painfully obvious. There's  a muscle twitching in his jaw as he opens his mouth again. "Red."

"Yeah, they're red," you say, raise an eyebrow. "Same as yours."

His eyes go distant with wonder, clicks rattling from his chest. "Same," he repeats, focuses his eyes back on you. "Red. Is bad. Same is. Same is no bad."

Your lips pull up a bit. "Yeah, being the same can be good."

"Good," he says, the clicks in his chest growing louder, and mother of God, are your eyes deceiving  you? Surely he can't be _smiling_. "Same is good."

* * *

After that heartwarming little moment the alien becomes downright clingy towards you. In the most aggressive way possible. Like he wants you in the same room as him at all times so he can growl at you. You can't decide if it's endearing or annoying as fuck. Dr. Lalonde is ecstatic about your little 'break through' with him. So of course she's making your spend as much time as possible with him. Fucking hell. Plus, she says, being around one of you all day should help him learn English faster while Bro works on the translator.

After a few days of kicking it with (read: being growled at by) Karkat in the small confinement room, you ask the Doc if it's okay to take him out of the room.

"He's going crazy in there," you say. And frankly, you don't blame him. he's been in the same small room for over a month. It's impressive he hasn't already gone insane.

The Doc is pretty up for the idea, says he needs exercise, a proper cleaning. The problem is convincing Bro to agree. It takes a few days of needling from you, Rose, the Doc, Jade and John, and even old Harley to get him to agree to it. But only on the condition that he's in the same room as you and Karkat at all times. At least until Karkat proves he won't be a threat.

When you gesture for Karkat to follow you out of the lab, he halts in front of the door, unease written all over his face. He works out a tense, "Why?"

"For fun."

It takes a bit of coaxing to get him to take an uneasy step outside the confinement room. You place a hand lightly on his almost-healed shoulder, he jumps a little but moves to walk closer beside you. He's making that weird cicada buzzing again, but softly.

When you walk through the house to get outside, Karkat's eyes dart over everything, nostrils flaring. He's walking so close to you that you almost trip over him a few times. You tap the back of his head with the hand you had on his shoulder.

"Calm down, you're fine," you say.

He hisses, shoulders tense. "Fuck you, not scared."

"Sure, okay."

He growls, hisses, jerks his arm into your ribs. The second you let out a little ' _oof_ ' he jerks away from you, winces. You keep your face passive, show he's okay, not in trouble. Though the little fucker has sharper elbows than what should be physically possible, goddamn.

He immediately goes back to being too close to you when you walk up to Bro, who's waiting for you by the front door.

"Well, look at the lovebirds," he drawls, expressionless.

"Bro. Bro, no."

He snorts, but holds the door to outside open. He's got a gun with him, loaded with tranquilizers.

Karkat downright beams when he walks outside, all his sharp teeth exposed in a way that should probably be creepy but you find it more sweet than anything else, and Lord help you, he's not a cat, you need to stop.

You get to spend about an hour playing catch with him, letting him run around, burn off some overly pent up energy. He's  a bit jerky at times and keeps a wary eye on Bro the entire time, but you can tell he's genuinely enjoying every moment outside the stuffy lab. For the first time you're really glad the research center was so far out in the middle of nowhere, else this wouldn't be possible.

You try to ignore the pang of guilt you feel as his face falls when you tell him that it's time to head back in.

But, happy, happy, day, the Doc lets you take Karkat to the bathroom to take his first proper shower since being here. Gotta get all that alien mangrit off and get his poor hair decently clean for once. Where ever the hell the trolls are from, they must have similar bathing tools since he has no problem at all working the shower. While he's getting washed up, Rose throws his clothes in the wash and gets him a clean set of new clothes.

By the time you get him back down to his room, he's making this brand new noise, an interesting mix of his cicada buzz, clicking, with a little undertone of the cricket chirp. It takes you a few minutes to register that, hey, he's _purring._ Heh, guess he really is a big, grey kitty-cat.

He goes straight for his pile, lays down, and yeah, you suppose he's exhausted.  It's his first day of actually using his muscles in over a month, and even though he's starting to adjust to your schedule, he still is nocturnal by nature. The guy must be whipped.

Before you head back to your room, out of the lab, you bend down, ruffle his clean hair. It's coarse, rougher than even a chemical-happy human's hair would ever be. Sort of like guard hairs on a wolf or raccoon. Just as thick, too. His purring grows louder at your touch.

"Yeah," you say, "I had a good day, too."

* * *

.

* * *

 

Life has gotten a fuckton better since Dave started taking you outside.

It's been a few weeks since you started your outdoor excursions and your shoulder is almost back to a hundred percent. The Doctor human has you doing exercises to get it back to full strength. She still comes down to poke at you a lot, along with the other lusus haired female, Rose. They still intimidate you, but at least the Doctor is nice, albeit lacking in respect for your personal space. Rose always asks you questions that you have a hard time understanding. Your human language skills are still extremely patchy, and though you're beginning to understand most of what's being said to you, you struggle with her longer words, struggle with coming up with the right words to answer her questions.

She mostly asks about where you're from, what you think of things. You're not sure what to tell her. Fuck, really it shouldn't matter what you tell her. Either way you're screwed in the end. You'll never get to go back to Alternia, never get to see your friends again. Hell, you can't even go back to the Fleet. You're stuck here, stranded, just like they wanted. All that's left for you is this small block, the patch of grass outside the building, and these smile-happy aliens. Maybe you should just rat everything you know, but fuck yourself to hell, you still feel loyalty to your empire. You don't know if that makes you a coward of a hero.

They start letting you stay up in the main part of their hive with them during the day, provided someone is always with you.

You keep around Dave as much as you can. Out of all the aliens, you can trust him most. He's the same color as you, makes him safe. You'd never thought you'd find someone else on any planet with your mutant blood color, but here he is, so he's your best bet. But, fuck, it kills your pride to rely on him so much, and you know he knows it, too. It makes you sick with shame, makes you hate yourself even more.

But for all the bastard pisses you off, he's the one you can tolerate most. He may not treat you like a threat, but at least he treats you with the respect of an equal. Most of the others still treat you like a frightened animal, like you'll never equate to being a full person. But when Dave looks at you, he sees you as a person. It's something you never even experienced with your own kind.

You first start flush dreaming about him during a drone cycle.  

You try to chalk it up to raging hormones, it's just drone season, your brain likes to fuck with you then, fucks with all trolls that way. No big deal. Awkward as all fuck, but it doesn't mean anything. Besides, you're just sexually frustrated. The empire hasn’t allowed you to have a matesprit or kismesis since you were found out. Can't contaminate the slurry after all. Unwanted flush dreaming should be expected.

But when your body starts reacting in the most embarrassing ways possible (son of a fuck, did you really just _chirp_ when he patted your head?), and the dreams continue beyond your drone cycle, you refuse to talk to him for a few days, growling whenever he gets close. You burry yourself in your pile, try to stop thinking about it.

Of course it doesn't work and the fucker insists on keeping his pink ass in your block until you go back outside with him.

You hate how happy it makes you when he does.

* * *

One of the more exciting days happens when the humans decide you are intelligent enough to watch their shitty television. The John human picks the first movie to watch. It's unbelievably awful, and by the other humans' reactions, it's bad by human standards, too. They let you pick the next movie. You try to find a good romance, but you have a hard time understanding the dynamics. Are all matesprits so pale-happy in human culture? And you find it odd that there are only male-female pairs (a weird kink maybe?). When you do pick one out, John groans and Dave laughs at you. You kick Dave in the shin with your heel when you sit down on the couch next to him to watch.

Despite the confusing cultural differences and the fact that you still have a hard time keeping up with all the human language, it's a pretty decent movie. By the middle of it you've slumped against Dave without ever remembering doing it. He's got a hand in your hair, playing with your horns instead of watching the movie. Rub, rub, rub along the base where it connects to your skull. It's soothing, hypnotic, too pale if you think about it but you don't because, wow, you can't remember the last time you've felt so good, safe. It takes you a while to notice you're purring and, fuck, you're a little embarrassed but you can't seem to make yourself stop. You hope the humans don't notice too much.

You fall asleep before the movie ends. When you wake up all the humans are gone. All but Dave. He's watching something else on a volume so low you can barely hear. He's still running his fingers through your hair, scratching your scalp just enough to feel good. He notices you're awake when you, of fucking course, start purring again.

He says something along the lines of "wow, I can't believe you're so lame you fell asleep," and flicks your horn. You growl at him, but most of the effect is lost at the way your purring gets louder at the same time. Bulgefuck.

You kind of want to maul your own face when you realize how disappointed you are when he tells you he needs to take you back to the confinement block.

You dream about him again that night.

* * *

.

* * *

 

Life settles into a consistent pace.

Harley and Bro have finally fixed the translator, not that it does much good anymore, Karkat's English is good enough to get him by, and he only gets better every day. Regardless, Harley was excited about getting it to work again since it meant they could hack into it more, maybe find war intel.

You bring Karkat outside every day so long as it's not raining (which can sometimes be days before you can because this is fucking Washington). Bro has finally started letting you and Karkat outside without him hovering over your shoulder the whole time, which is a relief for everyone, especially Karkat. The guy acts a lot like a hedgehog. Cute and cuddly one second and bristling the next, keeps you on your toes. You can't say you don’t like it.

Rose says you should stop spending so much time with him, let him get more used to the others, good for his socialization she says. You say fuck her, you can socialize him just fine. You don't like the idea of the other handling him all the time when you know they don’t see him as equal.

You don't know when you started getting so possessive over him. Was it after he got so clingy of you? You still don’t even fully understand why he got so attached in the first place. Your best bet is the similarity in your eye colors, but you don't get the significance of it. Rose told you it's probably something to do with blood color, that they might have caste systems based on it and since you have the same color he associates that with safety.

You realize you don't really care about the reason why, you just want to spend all your time with him.

* * *

One day, he abruptly asks you for the translator again. Says he wants to talk about stuff he doesn't have enough English words for yet. Harley is kind of reluctant to give it up, apparently he's really close to figuring out how to access the aliens' equivalent of the internet, some sort of military database, but in the end gives it to you under the promise you won't break it again.

And so here you are, sitting side by side to Karkat on the floor of his room.

\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]--

TG: so whats up mr eloquence  
TG: has my level of irony transcended your english speaking abilities  
TG: or am i just so overwhelmingly delicious that you lose your ability to speak

CG: I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND MY OWN MASOCHISTIC DESIRE TO ATTEMPT TO HAVE AN INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION WITH YOU.  
CG: BUT I AM HOPING YOU CAN AT LEAST REMOVE YOUR PALE-ASS HEAD FROM YOUR WASTE CHUTE LONG ENOUGH TO LAST ONE SIMPLE DISCUSSION.

TG: whoa man i almost forgot how ranty you are  
TG: maybe we should stop teaching you english so you dont get to this point in everyday conversation

CG: FUCK YOU.

TG: is that a threat or a promise

CG: I SWEAR I'LL TEAR YOU A NEW ONE, GRUBFUCKER.

TG: alright alright dont hurt yourself  
TG: why did you want to talk to me?

CG: RIGHT.  
CG: WHEN ARE YOU HUMANS PLANNING TO KILL ME?

TG: huh?

CG: DON'T ACT DUMB. EVEN IF YOU SOFT FUCKERS ARE BEING UNFATHOMABLY GENEROUS, WE BOTH KNOW YOU CAN'T KEEP ME HERE FOREVER.

TG: i dunno but i doubt the doc or rose or anyone will be willing to just kill you in the end  
TG: well bro might  
TG: but hes not really the one who gets to decide

CG: THEN ARE YOU PLANNING ON LETTING ME GO?

TG: idk maybe  
TG: why you want out of here that bad

CG: NO.

TG: no?

CG: I HAVE ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOTHING TO GO BACK TO.  
CG: I'LL ONLY BE CULLED IF I EVER RETURN.

TG: whoa dude why

CG: DON'T EVEN TRY ACTING LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW.

TG: no seriously why

CG: MOTHER OF FUCK YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHY.

TG: i dont know if you guys are like psychic in alien land  
TG: but i sure as hell cant read your mind

CG: YOU'VE SEEN MY BLOOD, NOOKWIFF.

TG: okay and

CG: SO YOU KNOW I'M A SHITFUCKING MUTANT, BULDGEFUCK.

TG: whoa you are?  
TG: this is getting too sci-fi for me  
TG: but what does your blood have anything to do with being mutant

CG: IT'S FUCKING *RED*  
CG: JUST LIKE YOURS.

TG: yea okay i know you guys have weird rainbow blood and shit  
TG: but i dont get why it being red is a problem

CG: ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?  
CG: EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE GOT FREAKISH MUTANT BLOOD, TOO.

TG: what are you talking about all humans have this blood color

Karkat abruptly stops his frantic typing. His eyes have gone all scared-dilated again. Well maybe _scared_ isn't quite the right word, but you can't find the right one. His throat has started up his nervous clicking. There's an array of emotions flickering over his face, each so fast you don't have the time to place them.  He closes his eyes tight, types a response.

CG: I AM SO FUCKING DONE.

He roughly sets down the translator, draws his knees up and buries his face in his arms. His clicking has been replaced by a loud, wavering chirping.

You're not sure what to do. This was the farthest thing possible from what you were expecting to talk about, and you sure as hell weren't expecting a sudden emo-kat on your hands. Fuck.

You bring your hand up to his coarse hair and start massaging the base of one of his horns, the way that's gotten him to purr before. Over and over on both horns, soothing as you can, digging your nails into his scalp. You don't even know why you're doing it. It's not helping anything. For all you know it's insulting, like you're treating him like he really is nothing but a cat. But, fuck, you hate seeing him like this.

After an hour of silent petting, Karkat hasn't started purring, but at least the chirping stopped.

* * *

.

* * *

 

You're really fucking perplexed.

The aliens all have mutant red blood. All of them.

You don't know if that makes you want to laugh or cry. Probably both. Yeah, you think you'll do both later.

Once Dave leaves, you bury yourself as deep into your pile as you can. You stubbornly force yourself to take a long nap even though you're not tired. Which, of fucking course, leads to a shitton of nightmares to deal with.

Throughout the nightmares you are bombarded with more dreams of Dave. The new knowledge of the aliens has left you confused as all fuck. You'd assumed you were feeling flushed, certainly it was never blackrom, and you had every reason to pity him when you thought he was a mutant freak like you. But now…

Now you don't understand at all. You don't pity him. But you still want him. And even though he drives you crazy sometimes, it's still not black. The idea of a concupiscent romance without hate or pity leaves you anxious. How can it even be romance that way?

If anything, the way you feel about him now borders on the edge of moirallegiance, except with a sick, perverted desire for sex.

Are you really that much of a freak that you can love someone like that?

You really hope not.

It had better be a fucking alien thing, not a mutant freak thing.

* * *

.

* * *

It happens when you have Karkat in your room to show him some music.

Both Rose and the Doc (especially the Doc) had gone ballistic science-y when you told them that Karkat was apparently a mutant who was banished or some shit. Rose was excited because of the cultural implications that held, and the Doc was beside herself with the excitement of studying an alien with a biological mutation.

Rose had said to try showing him some different media, see how much is familiar to him so she can tell what cultural overlaps that you might find. John and Jade had tried playing video games with Karkat (but nothing rated higher than _E for Everyone_ _._ Rose said anything with violence might trigger unwanted reactions from him), and now you were left with the task of enlightening your grumpy grey alien to the wonders of rap.  

Just like when he'd been introduced to the video games, Karkat didn't show any surprise when you started up the music. Rose said no surprise = no difference in that part of their culture. Evidently the aliens had video games and rap. Hell, if they have video games and rap, they must be hella cool aliens. Maybe if they invaded it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Haha, yeah fucking right.

It doesn't look like Karkat's all that interested in the music you're showing him, much to your disappointment. He hasn't shown much interest in anything besides you, actually. He's been way too quiet, not growly enough, and you keep catching him staring at you. You keep asking you what's up, and he keeps pretending he can't understand what you're asking, even though it's obvious he can.

You plop down next to him on the floor by your bed (which he's been avoiding just as much as the cot in his own room), fiddle with your iPod. He leans his head close to yours, looks down at the iPod screen. You can feel his warm breath on your face. You've stopped paying attention to the song titles you're scrolling through, but you keep your fingers moving. You're suddenly not sure what to say. You try to say something anyway.

"So, uh, is there any kind of music you li-" you start, are cut off when you turn to look at him, notice how close he is.

Suddenly, his lips on yours. You jerk back, eyes wide. He immediately recoils, garbling out what you think is an apology in both English and his own language. You can see the tips of his ears are showing red even through his dark skin. He starts to shift onto his feet, you grab his wrist before he can stand up. He loses his balance, falls back off his feet. He stares at you, pupils all constricted like they get when he's scared, but this time he's not buzzing, not chirping. You don't even think he's breathing.

You lean in and hesitantly push your lips against his.

Neither of you move for two solid seconds. You're pretty sure you've never felt two longer seconds in your life ever. Not even when you almost dropped Lil Cal in a pile of mud in front of your Bro before he caught it. Neither of you breathe, make any sound.  

He moves first, slowly brings a clawed hand to your shoulder for support before tilting his head to fit his lips against yours better. He's so warm, you're not sure if that's normal or not, not sure what the hell you're even doing, fuck, don't think about it, just go with it. You move your own hand forward, cup the back of his neck, slowly move your mouth against his. He tastes different, foreign.

The moment he starts purring you feel your chest go all fuzzy-warm. You smile against his mouth. For an absurd moment, you almost wish you could purr back. You settle with moving both your hands to his horns, rub the bases the way he likes.

Nothing much more happens. You kiss for a while, shyly, chaste.

You don't think you've ever felt happier.

* * *

"Dave, we need to talk."

The second the words leave Rose's mouth you're filled with the intense desire to abscond to the woods. Instead you do the responsible thing and say, "What?"

Rose just jerks her head towards the kitchen and Lord Allfucky this is gunna suck shit. You almost spew the shit yourself when you see the Doc and Bro at the kitchen table as you walk it. You really wish you could figure out time control and fast forward your way through this because _fuck._ Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

Your back remains painfully stiff when you sit down in the chair across the table from Dr. Lalonde and Bro. Rose takes a seat next to her mom. You feel like you're in an interrogation room from a b-rated detective movie. Or one of John's favorite Nic Cage flicks.

"We need to talk about Karkat," Rose says after a moment of looking between the Doc and Bro.

"What about him?" you respond, trying and failing to sound indifferent.

"You're getting too attached."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," you reply too fast.

"We're worried about you, hun," the Doc cuts in before Rose can say anything else. She has a sympathetic smile on her face, the one she would always use to calm you down after a fight. Right now it's just pissing you off. "We just don't want to see you gettin' hurt."

"He's not gunna hurt me," you say stiffly.

"You don't know that," Bro snaps, arms crossed. You flinch, can't manage to look directly at him. He looks like he's going to say more when the Doc cuts him off.

"We're worried about more than just physical hurtin', hun."

You're not really sure how to respond to that. Rose picks up the conversation for you.

"It's not healthy for you to get so attached, Dave," she sighs. "We don't even know how long we can keep him."

"I still say we should just get rid of it," Bro says.

"No," you snap before you even realize you're saying it. "He doesn’t even have anywhere to go!"

Rose sighs again, "I don't think your brother meant letting him go."

You go rigid. No.

"Well, we don't know anything for sure, yet," Dr. Lalonde quickly says.

"Roxy, you told me right when we took the fucking thing in that this would be a temporary deal," Bro snaps.

"Dirk, please don't start this now," the Doc says worrying her lips in her teeth. "Besides, you know Jake still wants to talk to him once his English is good enough to discuss military matter."

Bro audibly grinds his teeth, stands up. "Fine," he bites out and leaves the room.

Rose rubs her forehead. "I'd better warn Mr. Harley that he's about to get a cranky visitor," she says and leaves to go outside, to Harley's military shop.

You slump in your chair, run your hands through your hair. Dr. Lalonde reaches across the table and puts a hand on your shoulder.

"Don't worry, hun," she says. "I promise we aren't gunna kill him. No one really wants to. Your brother's just real upset right now. He's worried about you."

You can't bring yourself to look her in the eye. You know you look like you're about to cry.

You hate it so goddamn much.

* * *

.

* * *

 

When Dave suddenly crashes into you room, you immediately register something's wrong.

You try to ask, but he just shakes his head, refuses to tell you.

Instead you end up laying next to him in your pile, purring as soothingly as you can.

* * *

You think maybe the other humans don't like Dave being around you anymore. Whenever you leave the lab, go outside, there's always at least one of the other humans there now. It drives you crazy.

Dave starts visiting you in your room late at night, when all the other humans are sleeping. You find yourself looking forward to his visits every night, find yourself wanting more and more time with him.

You kiss a lot, sometimes going farther than others, but never too much.

* * *

.

* * *

It's never occurred to you how much you could become attached to someone. The more you kiss, the more you touch, only makes you feel farther away, like the only way to get closer is to kiss deeper, stay longer. It scares you how much you find yourself needing him, his presence, his everything.

You're not sure when you started needing him so much. When did your feelings for him go beyond pity, beyond guilt and the need to treat him like the equal he obviously is. You can't remember.

You can't remember what if felt like not to feel like this.

* * *

When you realize that you might actually be falling in love with Karkat, you can't decide if you're happy or terrified.

Curling up next to him late at night while he purrs helps chase the terror away.

* * *

 

Harley's finally managed to hack into the troll's military database. He and Bro are starting to plan for an ambush on their nearest encampment.

* * *

.

* * *

You and Dave slowly learn more and more about each other. You're language skills are improving, but you think Dave likes fucking with you by talking oddly. He helps you stay sane through the boredom, keeps you company in a way you never experienced with other trolls.

You learn pretty fast that he doesn't like it when you use your teeth or claws as much as a troll would. He likes playing with your horns, another thing that wouldn't really happen all that much in a troll relationship. Fascination, you're guessing. In return, you can't keep your hands out of his hair, running your palms over and over the spot where his horns should be. His hair is so soft, like a meowbeast's, but less fluffy, more silky. You've never felt anything like it.

And he's so warm. You're used to everyone being higher up on the hemospectrum than you, their blood colder. But Dave is just as warm as you are. The same.

* * *

.

* * *

You're starting to become almost as nocturnal as Karkat is. You've developed a habit of sleeping in his room and sneaking back to your own room before the others wake up. It's exhausting but you do it anyway.

You think John has figured it out, but he doesn't say anything. It reminds you why he's your best bud.

After a month, you start to feel safe again.

* * *

.

* * *

After what feels like ages of battling with yourself over your feelings with Dave, you even tried talking to him about your confusion (though he didn't really understand. Apparently the humans don't even _have_ quadrants. What the fuck), you've decided to force yourself not to think about it.

Just go with it. Whatever the hell kind of fucked up romance you're having, it's making you happy.

You'd read online as a kid, still back on Alternia, that the only other known troll to ever have your blood color had fallen into a kind of love that went beyond the quadrants.

You wonder if this is what he felt.

* * *

.

* * *

When Harley calls everyone for a meeting to explain the ambush he and Bro have planned for the next morning, you're floored. Everything that you used to feel about fighting the aliens has had  a sword shoved right through the heart of your world view. You feel sick to your stomach as you hear Dr. Lalonde discussing which kinds of trolls she would be interested in studying next, as you hear Bro talk about how many they're expecting to take out, hear Harley explaining the new weapons he's managed to create.

Ever since Karkat, the aliens aren't aliens anymore. They're people. Just like you. All this time you've been doing no better than killing your own kind.

You don't even register saying it out loud. But you do register Bro's sharp look, his sharp response.

"Either way, war is war. Always has been."

* * *

You can't make yourself go with to the ambush. The Doc spares you, says she 'needs you around to help in the lab.' You all know she's lying.

You can't make yourself go down to see Karkat either.

* * *

.

* * *

You know something's wrong when Dave doesn’t come down to see you like he always does. You spend your time pacing, pacing. You try to convince yourself that the other humans are keeping Dave away from you again. Sometimes they do that for a day or two. But you still feel off. Something's wrong.

Your worries are confirmed when Dave comes sprinting down the lab steps, panic all over his face. You immediately bristle in fear just off his expression. He's muttering frantically, fumbling to unlock the door to your room. When he gets it open, you're bombarded with a stream of fast, fast human language, too panicky, shaky.

"Shit, gotta get you out of here, fuck, didn't think they'd be back so soon and with, fuck, fuck, c'mon Karkat we gotta go, fuck-"

You're not sure if you're understanding right. He's talking too fast, you're not even sure if he's completing his sentences. He grabs your wrist, pulls you out of your room. You nearly trip over yourself as you hastily try to keep up. You _do_ trip over _him_ when he abruptly stops halfway to the steps, eyes glued to the doorway.

You follow his gaze and see the other humans approaching before you hear them. They're all bunched together, like they're trying to carry something heavy down the stairs.

Your blood-pusher freezes mid push when you see the thick, mustard colored liquid dripping to the floor, smearing onto their hands, clothes.

Before you can even see the body, you know. That's yellow troll blood. For a horrifying, mind curdling second, you think it's Sollux, and you can't breathe, can't think.  

It's only when the humans manage to heft the body the rest of the way down the stairs, onto an examination table, that you realize it's not him. This troll is female, her yellow eyes, barely distinguishable from her sclera, a far cry from Sollux's psyionic blue and red, stare blankly at the ceiling. Dead.

It takes a few sputtering, hitching moments before the cogs in your think pan start turning again, unevenly breaking you out of your stupor. Adrenaline rushes into your veins, takes over your senses. Panic.

When Dave's hand touches your arm, you lose grip on rationality, adrenaline thrumming in your ears. You can barely hear your own deafening buzzing, can barely see past the red blur your vision has become. You barely register slashing the hand away from your arm, the other humans trying to catch hold of you as you dart past, blindly sprinting up the stairs, through the hive, out the door.

Your ears are ringing, your blooding pulsing at a dizzying speed as you sprint towards the safety of the woods.

* * *

.

* * *

You're bounding up the stairs behind Karkat the second you recover from the shock of his claws slicing through your forearm.

You know the others are probably scrambling to get the tranquilizer - something none of you had bothered having on hand in months - but you focus your sole attention on moving as fast as you can.

When you get outside, you catch a glimpse of Karkat before he disappears into the trees.

The irony of this and the first time you met isn't lost on you.

You push after him, pausing a few feet into the trees, straining to hear his footsteps. It's hard to hear over  your own ragged breathing, the pounding in your ears. The moment you hear the crashing of tree branches you take off again.

You're not losing him.

You catch him at the edge of the river that runs behind your base. His eyes are darting back and forth, trying to find a way across when he hears you, spins around to face you. His claws are drawn up near his face, defensive, his shoulders hunched.

"Karkat-"

You're cut off by a loud hiss, spit catching between his sharp teeth. You freeze, a couple yards away. You've _never_ heard him hiss so loud, so threatening before. You take a hesitant step forward, he takes a step back, his feet dangerously close to the edge of the river.

"Hey, Karkat, please," you try to keep your voice as calm and soft as possibly, like you used to when he was first brought in. You're too panicked. It comes through. "It's me. It's okay."

He's buzzing, growling. His hair is standing on end, almost completely obscuring his tiny horns. You take another half step closer. His buzzing gets louder but this time he doesn't take a step back. He can't without ending up in the river, and although it's not deep or fast enough to make him drown, you both know it'll give you the perfect opportunity to catch hold of him if he falls in.

His growling gets louder as you slowly make your way forward, keeping your eyes level with his. He hisses again and you try your best to look non-threatening.

"Hey, hey, Karkat, shh, it's okay." You raise a hand slightly towards him, he flinches. "I promise it's okay. I won't hurt you. Please, Karkat, you know I won't hurt you."

His claws drop slightly. You take the opportunity to close the last small distance between the two of you, wrap your arms as tightly around him as you can. He immediately bucks against you, his buzzing screaming in your ears. You tighten your arms around him and quickly take a step back, pulling the both of you away from the river.

"Shhhh, shh," you whisper into his ear, rock him. "It's okay, it's okay. Fuck, I'm so sorry, Karkat."

After a few more panicked struggles against your chest, he slumps, his face in the crook of your neck. You hum, keep rocking him. He's shaking, a few sobs racking their way from him, and, oh god, this is the first time you've seen him cry. You can feel the wet warmth of his tears on your neck.

When you're sure he won't bolt again, you loosen your hold on him, nudge his chin up to look at you. You try not to show your surprise when you see that his tears are a diluted red.

"Are you okay?" you ask, using a thumb to wipe a red tear from his cheek.

"No."

You pull him against you again, tears burning at your own eyes. You gently lower yourself and him to the ground, keeping him as close as you can. You hum some more, tuneless, more to fight away the deafening silence that threatens to take over the two of you than anything else. After a while, you can hear the faintest purring from him, like he's trying to do the same.

"This sucks," you say into his hair.

"Yeah."

You run your fingers through his thick hair. Your arm hurts. You think you'll probably need a few stitches where Karkat's claws cut the deepest. You know you're eventually going to have to get back up, go back to the lab. Oh, God, you hope the others will have gotten that troll body out of there. How could they have been so sick, so stupid? How could _you_ have been so stupid for not seeing it coming in the first place? You would have tried to stop them if you'd known. Tried to get Karkat out of there sooner.

You hate that you have to take him back. Hate it so much.

But even if you tried to sneak him away, where would you go? He's already said he can't go back to his people, and he can't be around other humans, they'd kill him the second they saw him.

As much as you hate to admit it, the lab is probably the safest place for him to be.

"This sucks," you say again.

You bury your face deeper in his hair. Things are going to get harder after this. Regardless of what anyone does, it's not going to stop the impending war. It's not going to stop the others from doing more research, fighting more battles.

You know that they're going to start keeping a closer watch on Karkat again.

"This really fucking sucks."

"Yeah."

But…

"But you know what?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm kind of glad it sucks."

He pulls his head back to look at you, confusion in his tear swollen eyes.

"Because, even though this war is the stupidest fucking thing, and the fact that you're a mutant really sucks, and the fact that my Bro doesn't like us together really sucks, and the fact that we don't know how any of this is going to turn out really sucks -"

Karkat cuts you off mid-ramble with a gentle butt of his head to your chin. You laugh lightly.

"Because even though all of that really sucks, if none of it happened than I never would have met you."

"…Yeah."

Before Karkat, you would have never considered the possibility of anything good coming from something so bad, but before Karkat you don't think you ever saw anything the way you do now.

And you wouldn't change that for all the happy endings in the world.


End file.
